Cold
by Art3misiA
Summary: At first, Pansy hated the song. Then she grew to tolerate it. Finally, she came to see it as a symbol of their love - but was it? Dark fic. CWs for character death, pregnancy, infidelity, revenge. Written for the Slytherin Cabal's 2019 Twistmas fest. *ONE-SHOT*


**_Another of my entries for the Syltherin Cabal's Twistmas 2019 fest. Our task was to take a fluffy, holiday themed prompt and twist it into something dark, spooky, mysterious or just plain unexpected!_**  
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**_The prompt for this story was "Baby, it's Cold Outside." Beta love to ThorneAndRose!_**

**_CWs for major character death, pregnancy, infidelity, revenge. Out of my submissions, this is the darkest._**

**_Enjoy!_**

* * *

The first time Harry played _Baby, it's cold outside_ to Pansy, she thought it was the cheesiest, most ridiculous song she'd ever heard.

"But it's a Muggle Christmas classic, Pans," Harry had insisted, looking at her earnestly as he danced around his living room.

"Well, Muggles clearly have no taste in music," she had sniffed dismissively.

However, he would not relent and played it to her constantly throughout the month of December, insisting it was a romantic couples' song, until she became so utterly sick of hearing it that she _Incendioed_ the whole CD. Harry had acted extremely put out, but he later assured her he really hadn't minded.

"I'll just buy another one," he grinned, his black hair flopping in his eyes as he leaned forward to kiss her.

That was their first Christmas together.

* * *

The following Christmas, out came the CD again, playing repeatedly along with other Muggle Christmas songs.

"You know, I don't think this song is so awful after all," Pansy observed thoughtfully as she was forced to listen to it for the umpteenth time.

"You don't?" Harry replied with a grin.

"No," she continued. "I think that song about the dog fighting that Baron bloke is worse."

"Pansy! How can you say that?" Harry was shocked. "_Snoopy's Christmas_ is one of the best songs of all time!"

"It's absurd!" Pansy insisted. "How can a dog fly an aeroplane? And why would any army choose a dog to fight over actual human soldiers with opposable thumbs?"

Harry had explained aeroplanes to Pansy earlier in the year and she had been fascinated by them, going so far as to learn as much as she could about the history of flight and the different ways Muggles used them. She considered herself somewhat of an expert, and took the whole subject very seriously. She just couldn't believe Muggles would come up with an idea that was so patently nonsensical.

Harry tried introducing her to _Charlie Brown _in an effort to explain the backstory of Snoopy and the Bloody Baron, but it made no difference.

"Is he the same Baron as the one in the castle?' she asked, after reading one of the comics.

"No, the characters are all fictional," Harry replied, his arm around her as they sat together on his couch.

"Well, thank goodness for that," Pansy sighed, snapping the book shut. "It's bad enough that the dog flies planes, but the idea that he uses his doghouse as one is just too preposterous for words. It's an insult to pilots everywhere!"

That was the year he gave her flying lessons for Christmas.

* * *

On their third Christmas together, Harry started singing along to the CD and trying to get her to dance with him whenever _Baby, it's cold outside _came on.

"Why in Merlin's name would I want to dance to this?" Pansy had snorted, pulling away from him and picking up her wine glass.

"Because Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams dance to it in _Neptune's Daughter_," Harry explained. "It's a Muggle film."

On Christmas Eve that year, Harry brought home a VHS tape with the film on it, and set it up on his VCR, which he had purchased several months prior. It had taken some time to get the Muggle device to work in Grimmauld Place, but watching videotapes quickly became one thing Pansy very much enjoyed.

"Come on, Pans. Watch it with me, _please_," Harry begged.

"Fine," she grumbled, rolling her eyes and settling down with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of wine.

Despite herself, she was entranced by the movie, and by the end of it the song had finally begun to grow on her.

On Christmas morning, she finally allowed Harry to twirl her around the room as the song played.

* * *

"Can you believe this is our fourth Christmas?" Harry murmured into Pansy's neck as he planted a trail of kisses there.

"_Mmmmm," _Pansy hummed in response, shivering in delight from her position sprawled on the couch, half under the dark-haired wizard.

The opening strains to _Baby, it's cold outside_ caused Harry to abruptly cease his attentions, and she huffed in displeasure as he pulled away from her with a glint in his eyes.

Her huff turned into a yelp of surprise as he stood, grabbed her by the hand and hauled her to her feet, sweeping her into an embrace. "Sing along, Pans," Harry begged, looking deep into her eyes.

Pansy laughed and shook her head, embarrassed, as the first lines of the song floated over to them.

"Go on!" Harry urged. "It's just us here. No need to be embarrassed."

By now she knew the lyrics by heart, after hearing the song so many times. Pansy took a deep breath to steady the sudden flutter in her stomach, and waited for the right time to chime in.

"_My mother will start to worry,"_ she sang.

"_Beautiful, where's your hurry?"_ Harry followed.

As Harry twirled her around the room and they sang along, Pansy thought she had never been happier.

"_Baby, it's cold… Baby it's cold outside!" _They sang together, bringing the song to its conclusion.

On Christmas morning that year, Harry proposed. The ring featured a princess cut diamond surrounded by tiny sapphires, set in a silver band.

Pansy wept with happiness as he slid it onto her finger.

* * *

It was their fifth Christmas together, and their first since they had been married. Pansy had wanted a summer wedding, so they held the ceremony in the middle of June, six months after Harry proposed. It had been the happiest day of Pansy's life. As they exchanged vows, she excitedly looked forward to the life they would have together.

She had a very special Christmas present for Harry this year, and with three weeks to go until the twenty-fifth, she didn't know how she would be able to keep it from him. Nevertheless, she just knew he would be thrilled.

"I can't wait to meet you," she whispered as she looked out the window at the street, where snow was softly falling.

An hour later, she was becoming worried. Harry was late. He was usually home on time, and if he expected to be delayed, he always got a message to her. This time, however, she had heard nothing. She paced back and forth in front of the glittering tree, rubbing her wedding ring nervously.

"_Baby, it's cold outside..." _she sang to herself.

Twenty minutes later, Pansy was throwing on her cloak, determined to go and look for him, when the Floo roared.

"Where have you been?" she cried, throwing herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "You had me worried!"

"I'm sorry, babes," Harry apologised, kissing her softly and wrapping his arms around her waist. "I got held up at work."

"But why didn't you send me a message?" she insisted, feeling cross now that she knew he had been fine all along.

"I just forgot," he shrugged. "I'll remember next time, I promise."

Pansy frowned. Harry _never_ forgot.

"Come on," he continued, turning her towards the couch. "Sit down, and I'll make dinner."

"Okay," she smiled.

She wasn't smiling a week later when he was late _again_, and once again had not bothered to get a message to her to let her know when he expected to return. This was the _third time!_

When he finally stepped through the Floo two hours after his usual arrival time, she was waiting with her arms crossed.

"What is going on with you?" she demanded. "All of a sudden you're coming home late every second day, and not even bothering to let me know when to expect you?"

"Merlin's balls! Get off my back, Pansy!" Harry snapped at her. "I've just gotten home and you're already bloody nagging me!"

Pansy flinched as if he had slapped her.

"I— I just worry about you, Harry!" she said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself and looking down at her feet. "I love you, you know that! You have a dangerous job, and with all those threats against the Aurors' division, I keep thinking that—" her voice faltered and she looked at him with tears in her eyes.

Harry's expression softened and he went to her, taking her in his arms and kissing her forehead.

"It's just been mad at work, what with all these robberies," he explained. "I'm up to my eyeballs in paperwork from all the complaints we get from shopkeepers whose businesses are being targeted. Whoever it is is getting past their wards and causing no end of damage, and our department is being pressured by the Wizengamot to hurry up and catch the bastards."

"I'm sorry for jumping down your throat the minute you got home," she apologised.

"Dont worry about it," Harry reassured her as he held her tightly.

Pansy froze as she got the faintest whiff of perfume. It wasn't hers.

She opened her mouth to comment, then shut it again. She was tired and nauseous, and didn't want to start another argument. _It's probably nothing,_ she told herself. _It could have come from anywhere. It's Hermione's or Ginny's, for all I know._

* * *

It was eight days before Christmas, and once again, Pansy was waiting for Harry to come home. He was very late - later than he had been on the previous occasions - and she was beginning to suspect there was more to his absences and lack of communication that he let on.

He had started to become distant with her as well. Where previously he had always been very affectionate - kissing her soundy when he arrived home, placing his arm around her shoulders when they were watching the telly, and cuddling up to her in bed at night - he had increasingly been giving her the briefest of kisses, only placing his hand on her knee on the couch and rolling away from her at night once she had dozed off.

Pansy began to worry that something was wrong. _What if he knows, somehow, and he isn't ready?_ She fretted.

She looked out of the window at the snow-covered street, her hands over her abdomen. She rubbed the spot softly. "_My mother will start to worry,"_ she sang to herself.

When he finally arrived home, he smelled of firewhiskey. And perfume.

* * *

Five days before Christmas, she was devastated and sobbing on the couch. After the night Harry had come home smelling of alcohol and another woman, Pansy secretly put a trace on her husband and began following him.

He had a lover. Cho Chang.

She had no idea how long it had been going on or how they had reconnected, but he was clearly enchanted with the ex-Ravenclaw woman who had been his crush at Hogwarts. Enchanted enough that he barely gave his wife a second thought any more. But the thing that stung the most, even more than the bare fact that he was sleeping with another woman, was that he had been singing _their song_ to her.

She had watched, tears falling from her eyes, under a _Disillusionment_ spell as Harry twirled Cho around her living room while the song played, singing along with the male half of the lyrics. The curtains had been open, allowing Pansy to see and hear with crushing clarity.

"_Look out the window at that storm… Gosh, your lips look delicious!"_ he sang.

Cho was laughing and smiling up at him, her arms around Harry's neck and brushing his hair out of his eyes the way Pansy used to, looking like she didn't have a care in the world.

She probably didn't, Pansy thought dejectedly. _She_ wasn't the one with a runaway husband who had gone back to his schoolyard crush and shared something that was supposed to be intimate and special with another woman.

Now she was sprawled in a heap, her face red and blotchy and her throat raw from sobbing. She rubbed at her itchy eyes, sat up, and sniffed. Gradually, she began to grow angry.

_How dare he do this to me! I loved him, and he threw me away like so much trash!_ She thought. She was a Parkinson, after all, and Parkinsons did not tolerate unfaithfulness. Picking up her cloak, she Floo'ed to her parents' house to speak with her father.

* * *

It was Christmas Eve. Harry was late again, of course, but it didn't really matter. Not anymore.

Finally he arrived home, looking dishevelled and tired.

"Merry Christmas, darling," Pansy cooed. "Have a drink. It's a vintage bottle of Ogden's from Daddy's collection - 1903!"

She handed Harry a tumbler full of the amber liquid, showing him the bottle.

"Thanks, Pans," he nodded, taking the glass from her hand and downing it in one gulp.

"Harry!" she chided him gently. "That's good whiskey! You should appreciate the finer things in life, take time to enjoy them while you can. You never know when they'll be gone."

"Can I have another one?" Harry asked, holding out his glass. "I promise to savour it this time."

"Of course," Pansy smiled, topping him off.

Half an hour later, the sleeping draught she had added to the whiskey had done its job, and Harry was completely unresponsive. She took hold of his arm and apparated them out of the house.

* * *

Harry was dreaming of someone singing.

"_Say, what's in this drink?"_

His head hurt, and he wasn't sure where he was.

"_At least I'm gonna say that I tried…"_

He tried to move, to sit up, but he couldn't.

"_I really can't stay…"_

Whoever it was, they couldn't go! He needed help.

"_Baby, it's cold outside…"_

It _was_ cold. Very cold.

Harry cracked his eyes open with some difficulty and attempted to look around. The world slowly began to swim into focus. Everything around him was green and white, and it was eerily quiet - except for the singing. Now he recognised the voice.

"Pansy?" he croaked.

"Why, welcome back, Harry darling," she purred. He looked up as she moved to stand in front of him. He had to crane his neck up quite high, because he seemed to be quite low on the ground.

Trying once again to move, Harry realised with shock and fear that he wasn't just on the ground - he was _in_ it. He was buried in snow up to his neck.

"Pansy! What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, struggling to get himself free. His actions were fruitless. The snow was packed densely around him, hard and cold, preventing any movement.

"I might ask you the same thing," Pansy replied, looking down at him haughtily. "When did I stop being enough for you, Harry?"

"Wha—what do you mean?" he stammered.

His wife threw back her head and laughed cynically. "Don't play the innocent with me. I _know_ about you and Cho."

"You.. know?" Harry echoed, looking up at her with a mixture of guilt and resignation.

"Of course I know," Pansy replied, her voice wavering. "You've _changed, _Harry! I noticed weeks ago, when you stated coming home late all the time and not even bothering to let me know about it! I didn't want to admit to myself then that something was wrong, but then you just got worse! You started distancing yourself from me, and—" Pansy broke down, sobbing, her hands over her face. She turned away from him.

"Pans, I—"

"Don't _Pans _me!" She whirled around, furious. "After you came home drunk and reeking of her perfume, I placed a tracking charm on you. I followed you, watched you with her. I watched you dancing and singing with her. How could you sing _our song_ to her, Harry? How could you sing our song to another woman?"

Harry was silent. He didn't know how to explain. It had just happened. He had seen Cho at a Ministry function a few months before. It had started off innocent, with a few owls back and forth, the odd friendly drink. Then, at the end of November, they had kissed, and before Harry knew it, he was all wrapped up in her, dreaming of the almost-relationship they had at Hogwarts.

"I'm sorry, Pansy," he sighed, heavily. "We can work this out. Just let me out. Please. You've made your point."

"No, it's too late for that," Pansy replied, shaking her head.

"Don't be daft, of course it's not too late," Harry argued, feeling his unease grow. He shivered. _Merlin,_ it was cold. "Come on, let me loose. I'll freeze."

"That's the idea, Harry."

He laughed nervously. "Nah, you're taking the piss. You love me. I love you. You wouldn't do this to me, I'm your husband."

"I never thought my husband would cheat on me, and throw away a symbol that was meant to be something special between us," she countered, sadness in her voice.

"It's just a song, Pansy, for Godric's sake!" Harry argued, desperate now.

"_Just_ a _song?_ That's all it is to you? After all these years, after playing it to me over and over every Christmas, after calling it romantic and a classic and—and making me _love_ it, to see it as something we shared?"

Her lip curled, and her expression in that moment reminded him of the girl he had known at Hogwarts - the ruthless, cunning, no-holds-barred Slytherin who had gone about with the likes of Draco Malfoy, and he began to really feel afraid.

"I was going to give you the best gift a wife could give her husband, Harry. A gift for both of us. But now, I can see you don't deserve it. You wouldn't be worthy." She opened her heavy coat and placed her hands on her abdomen. "I'm carrying your child, Harry. But I can't have you potentially abandoning them, abandoning me. Neglecting your duties as a husband and a father."

"You're—pregnant?" Harry stuttered.

"Yes," Pansy replied softly. "Almost three months along, now. It's just a pity the child will grow up without a father."

Harry felt anger flare up inside him, quashing his fear. "But—You can't! You won't get away with this! You'll go to Azkaban and our child will be taken from you!"

She laughed again. Laughed _at_ him. "You're still clueless about the Wizarding world. Of course I'll get away with it. I'm a Parkinson - one of the Sacred Twenty Eight. My father is friends with some of the most powerful and influential Wizards in Europe. No one will ever find you. To the world, you will be a runaway husband who abandoned his wife while she was carrying your heir. I will be held up as a symbol of a strong woman who rises above her no-good husband and raises her child alone."

"Pansy, p—please," Harry tried again. It was becoming hard to talk now. Hard to breathe. He was cold, so cold. His body shook so violently that his teeth rattled.

Pansy began to sing softly, so softly Harry could barely hear the words. Still, he didn't have to. He knew them too well.

"_I really can't stay..."_

"P—Pansy, f—for the l—last t—time—!"

"_The answer is no…"_

"P—Please—!"

_I've got to get home…"_

Harry's vision was fading. As hard as he tried to stay awake, it was proving impossible. He had stopped shivering now, and barely felt the cold any more. He felt almost warm, and he was so very sleepy. He would try and reason with his wife in just a few moments, but first he needed to rest his eyes. Just for a minute, and then he would reason with her. He would—

"_Baby, it's cold outside…"_

* * *

Pansy drew her warm coat closer around her, and cast another warming charm over her body. It really was cold outside - not that Harry was feeling it anymore. His head lolled back against the snow, his mouth was open, but no breath issued from it. The Boy Who Lived was now The Boy Who Froze To Death In The Woods.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she regarded her former husband. "Goodbye, Harry," she whispered, before Apparating away.

Soon afterwards, cloaked and hooded figures appeared in the spot where Harry had spent his final moments. Two of the figures had flashing grey eyes and pale blond hair, barely visible beneath their coverings.

"Let's get this done," one of them said gruffly to the others.

The rest of the party murmured their assent, and closed in.


End file.
